ST CHARLES, Mo. — The push to defund police is stirring emotions in St. Charles. An activist is now voicing her concern about what she says are controversial statements made by the mayor.
"My point in the conversation was to urge him to start considering the defunding of the police because during my research I see that 72% of the community funds in St. Charles goes to police and fire," said St. Charles resident Brianna Howard.
Howard said on Monday, Mayor Dan Borgmeyer returned her call to discuss defunding the city's police department. That hot topic took a turn when Howard said she urged Mayor Borgmeyer to follow Minneapolis' lead and consider the change.
“I decided to urge to look to Minneapolis and what they are doing by defunding their police department and reallocating their funds and he started to become very angry at this point and asked me if I knew what the downtown population of Minneapolis consisted of. And I didn’t answer because I did not know, and he said Muslims and Minneapolis will see Sharia law enacted within their city, which of course rang the alarm bells of Islamophobia to me," said Howard.
Sharia law is a religious law forming part of the Islamic tradition, which includes moral principles that cover all aspects of Muslim life. 5 On Your Side's Jasmine Payoute asked the mayor about that phone call.
"I merely pointed out that I knew Minneapolis, and the particular situation in Minneapolis was that it was very strongly Muslim, in downtown anyway, and that I heard that in other markets like Dearborn and places like that, that they're proposing Sharia law in some of those places," said Borgmeyer. "Like I said, who knows if there's a heavy Hispanic population someplace and they defund the police, what is the alternative to defunding the police?"
"Do you know why some people, why Brianna would find that offensive to bring up the racial background of a group when talking about defunding the police in certain areas?" Jasmine asked the mayor.
"I think it's important for people who want to defund the police to have an alternative and realize what the possibilities might be if that does happen. So, I think it was a very appropriate part of the dialogue. I think there were no racism or ethnicity comments or any slander in any way on something like that. It was merely a possibility of a situation," Mayor Borgmeyer responded.
Howard disagrees.
"My immediate reaction was shock because I do not believe that people who are racist should hold positions of power in our country," she said. "it is unconstitutional to criminalize an entire religion. To hear that coming from the mayor of St. Charles who has citizens within St. Charles who practice the Muslim religion, it just shocks me to think that he could turn on his own citizens that way and criminalize them in that way just based on their religion.”
Their conversation ended with an invite to speak in person at the next St. Charles City Council meeting.
Both Howard and the mayor say they will attend.